Battlefield Earth (2000)

F
SDG

Here is the closest thing to a positive
statement I can make about Battlefield Earth: Although it
is an adaptation of a novel by L. Ron Hubbard, the founder of the
sect of Scientology — and although it stars John Travolta, one of
Hollywood’s most high-profile Scientologists and a long-time
champion of this project — Battlefield Earth is not a
cryptic tract or allegory of Scientology. (By contrast, a
previous Travolta project, Phenomenon, arguably was
an allegory of Scientology.) While traces of Hubbard’s views can
be found here and there (e.g., the name of the evil "Psychlo"
alien race apparently reflects Hubbard’s animosity toward the
disciplines of psychiatry and psychology), the film has no
noteworthy problematic or offensive spiritual or moral
implications, overt or covert.

Moral/Spiritual Value

Age Appropriateness

MPAA Rating

Caveat Spectator

In other words, for better or for worse — and it’s pretty much
all for worse — Battlefield Earth is exactly what it is,
no more and no less: a loud, dumb, unpleasant, illogical,
thoroughly generic sci-fi epic utterly devoid of any trace of
drama, originality, passion, interest, or life.

No, it doesn’t rise to the appalling heights of awfulness of
such legendary mega-bombs as Ishtar, Toys, or
Burn Hollywood Burn. It hasn’t the wit. Those films were
awful in their own absolutely unique ways — ways no other bad
filmmaker had ever even imagined making any other bad film.

By contrast, Battlefield Earth lacks any slightest
shred of creativity. Its story (alien invaders destroy human
civilization, keeping humans in Stone-Age living conditions for a
thousand years before one human arises to lead a rebellion)
contains nothing that hasn’t been done better in countless other
Planet of the Apes knockoffs and Star Trek
episodes. There is not one device, not one scene that provokes
surprise, except at the filmmakers’ judgment; not one visual that
inspires wonder; no futuristic technology, set, or spacecraft
that is in any way remarkable. Nothing that happens, right up to
the climax, has the least emotional resonance.

It’s astonishingly bad, to be sure, but its badness is
strictly derivative and formulaic. In fact, the film is a virtual
compendium of everything that can possibly be done in a science
fiction epic without ever accomplishing a single thing that
anyone would want to do with a science fiction epic. It
lacks even the wit to work as camp. It ought to be studied at
film school as a textbook case of how not to make a movie. Rules
not to be followed might include the following:

Start with a hero and a villain who are as unimpressive and
uncompelling as possible. To really run the gamut of badness,
the hero should be dull, bland, uninspiring, and forgettable,
but the villain must be portrayed in the most over-the-top,
strutting, scenery-chewing, ham-fisted way imaginable. This
will be even more effective and unbalanced if the villain is
played by a big-name star like John Travolta (who fully merited
his Golden Raspberry Award for Worst Actor), but the hero is an
actor best known for supporting roles — say, Barry Pepper
(whose name you might not recognize even if you’ve seen him in
The Green Mile, Saving Private Ryan, Enemy of
the State, or Titanic).

Ensure that the villainous aliens are in no way unique,
interesting, or visually appealing. Generic Klingon-esque
forehead complications and Predator-like dreadlocks will
do. If that’s not unpleasant enough, consider thick claw-like
fingernails and drooping breathing tubes that hang like snot
from their nostrils. (The humans, too, should be unkempt and
generally unpleasant-looking; why should the audience derive
irrelevant aesthetic satisfaction from anything on the screen
being enjoyable to look at? Human beings may still utter idioms
like "piece of cake", but on no account should they possess the
technology to comb their hair.) Keep the aliens’ intrigues
banal and obvious, with clumsy double-crosses, blackmailings,
and office-politics blather about contracts, memos, transfers,
and the like.

At the same time, don’t feel torn between a provincial,
human-centric picture of alien society on the one hand, and an
almost unbridgable "alien" gap on the other. You can do
both! Just because one of your aliens whines that he didn’t
know that an alien female he slept with was a senator’s
daughter — thus implying a whole social fabric of familial
structures, sexual taboos, and political patterns essentially
interchangeable with current human ones — that doesn’t mean you
can’t also make your aliens so alien that, even after a
thousand years of ruling mankind, they are:

unable to recognize humans as sentient beings capable
of using tools or weapons (while the ruins of our cities
and civilization are all around them);

unable to communicate with their slaves (which seems
rather impractical, and wouldn’t a race as technologically
advanced as the Psychlos at least have scientists who might
be as interested in human language as we are in the
communication of, say, dolphins or bees?);

not only unaware of what kinds of food humans like to
eat but also unable to figure it out, unable to recognize
desperate foraging when they see it;

repulsed by the beauty of the Colorado Rockies,
especially in comparison to the delights of their own foul
sewer treatment plant of a homeworld; and

unable to find Fort Knox in a thousand years when they
have this thing — and this gets us back to the provincial
human-centric bit — for gold.

Either alternative would be bad, but both together is
something really special!

When shooting the film, don’t worry about style, direction,
storytelling, or cogency. Constantly employ some pointless
device, like randomly tilting the camera at arbitrary angles in
practically every scene. (It may not make the movie any more
visually interesting, but it’ll definitely get the critics’
attention and give them something to talk about.) And you can’t
have too many sweepy transitions. Battle sequences don’t have
to be choreographed or intelligible; plenty of fast cutting,
explosions, and desperate action will carry the scenes.

Let’s face it, people don’t watch movies like this for the
story, so don’t bother about petty consistency or logic issues.
When Jonnie specifically mentions having learned Euclidean
geometry from an alien teaching machine, no one will mind that
an alien teaching machine wouldn’t call it "Euclidean"
geometry — unless of course in another one of those odd
provincial touches the same mathematical principles just
happened to have been worked out by a Psychlo mathematician who
coincidentally also happened to be named Euclid. Likewise,
fighter jets, nuclear missiles, and other sophisticated
technology can be stipulated to have lain around for a thousand
years and still be in perfect working order, and illiterate
Stone-Age humans can easily learn to use such equipment, even
flying the jets in only a week.

Note: Although as mentioned above
Battlefield Earth is not an allegory of Scientology,
certainly it was made with the sect’s support; and a percentage
of anything the movie takes in will doubtless find its way into
their coffers. Those tempted to rent the film out of morbid
curiosity should keep in mind that they may be supporting an
insidious sect. Fortunately, Battlefield Earth lost so
much money at the box office that it may never be
profitable.